They had been working for a Catholic bishop and had clear-cut orders from Pope Francis himself – probe studies of pedophile clergymen in a metropolis in Colombia.
What these two investigators – two Catholic women with expertise conducting felony probes – discovered was an utter bombshell: a community of predatory clergymen that sexually abused not less than 20 individuals, reportedly taking turns with certainly one of them.
The abuse was dedicated in Villavicencio, a central Colombian metropolis of half 1,000,000 individuals with a cathedral in the city sq., and components of the encompassing space that fall beneath one archdiocese.
The pope says preventing clergy sex abuse is certainly one of his priorities, and in 2019, he advised the bishop of Villavicencio, Oscar Urbina, to analyze alleged abuses by clergymen.
The bishop turned to Olga Cristancho, 68, a seasoned former prosecutor, and Socorro Martinez, 59, who used to work in the lawyer basic’s workplace and has expertise probing massacres in Colombia, a rustic that endured many years of battle involving authorities forces, leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers.
But shortly after the church probe started, these two women distanced themselves from Urbina, suspecting a cover-up and launching an investigation of their very own.
Cristancho stated she was shocked by what she realized.
“I by no means dreamed of such a factor,” she advised AFP. The women sleuths gathered proof regardless of what they known as interference from the bishop.
Among their finds: one man advised them clergymen began abusing him at age 15 and took turns doing so.
Priests additionally used code phrases to speak with one another, Cristancho stated.
“One would say to the opposite, ‘I’m sending you a CD,’ however that meant, ‘I’m sending you that boy’,” Cristancho stated.
The two investigators despatched the conclusions of their effort to the Vatican in 2019 – and are nonetheless awaiting a response.
A e book printed final yr by journalist Juan Pablo Barrientos relies on their work and goes additional, with testimony implicating 38 clergymen in sexual abuse. The church tried in useless to censor it.
‘I felt soiled’
The church has quietly despatched away 20 of the clergymen accused of abuse. So far, two others are in jail after being convicted of abusing a 13-year-old choir boy.
“It will likely be as much as the courts, each judicial and canon, to render a verdict,” stated William Prieto, a priest and spokesman for the archdiocese, in the church’s solely public touch upon this scandal.
Colombian prosecutors opened their very own investigation, and in late January, Cristancho and Martinez gave testimony. The lawyer basic’s workplace declined an AFP request for remark.
Urbina’s workplace additionally declined AFP requests for remark.
One of the victims is a person who for this story is being recognized as Miguel.
As a baby, his household used to trip in Villavicencio, and his mother and father would ship him to a rectory to see an uncle who was a priest.
There, a seminarian abused Miguel, forcing him into oral sex.
“He knew tips on how to manipulate my uncle’s belief, my household’s belief, in order that I might go to mattress with him,” Miguel stated in an interview throughout which he hid his face.
As an grownup, he stated he suffered from suicidal ideas and melancholy.
“I wished to finish my life,” he stated. “I felt soiled.”
He filed a criticism with church authorities however has not obtained a solution.
Martinez says she hardly goes out anymore, and her son obtained a name in which she was described as a “sapa,” or snitch.
The church hierarchy considers her an enemy, she stated.
“We had been the pebble in their shoe,” Martinez stated. – AFP
